Religion-based parties like Family First (FFP), the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) and the rump of the old Democratic Labour Party (DLP) command a small share of the national vote, perhaps about five per cent. Most FFP and CDP votes are pinched from the Coalition, a fact not lost on John Howard who keeps throwing these electors crumbs from the table - a heterosexual marriage law here and a bit of internet censorship there. (Howard’s good at this - remember Pauline Hanson and the Tampa?) If he can’t recapture the primary votes at least he snags most of the preferences.

So why don’t these little parties amalgamate or at least cooperate much more closely than they do? Same god (well, more or less), very similar policies, economies of scale, unified voice and all the rest of it?

Because they hate each other. If you think ‘hate’ is too strong, I’d settle for ‘despise and distrust’. Whichever way you slice it, there’s a lot of animosity between these parties. Indeed, when you come to think of it, they behave exactly like secular political parties. Could a lesson be drawn from this?

Recently, Canberra journalist Gerard McManus had an article in the National Civic Council’s News Weekly entitled ‘A political vacuum waiting to be filled’ (13 May 2006). This article was part of a talk that McManus had given to a FFP dinner in Melbourne on 6 April, praising the party for ‘challenging the culture’ and more or less writing off or ignoring similar outfits.

Gerard Goiran, WA State Director of the CDP, wasn’t going to take this lying down:

… [McManus's article] reads like a manifesto for the Family First party and is unworthy of the usually high quality editorial policy of your newspaper.

Goiran then compares recent CDP and FFP election results. It would help to have a magnifying glass handy:

At the last federal election, in NSW, the CDP received 2.61 per cent of the upper house vote, and Family First 0.56 per cent. In WA, the CDP received 1.88 per cent of the vote, Family First 0.85 per cent.

At the 2004 WA state election, the CDP received 2.93 per cent of the vote in the Legislative Assembly, Family First 2.02 per cent. At the recent Victoria Park [WA] by-election, the CDP received 3.49 per cent of the primary vote, Family First 0.96 per cent.

Goiran actually has the nerve to conclude from these figures that:

These results not only show that Family First does not fill any vacuum in NSW and WA, but they also underline the tremendous growth experienced by CDP in WA … The opportunities therefore exist for the CDP in WA to displace both the Greens and the National Party in the country regions of the state and become indeed also a champion of ordinary Australians holding mainstream values. (Letter in News Weekly, 27 May 2006)

I almost hate to spoil Goiran’s party by reminding him that ‘ordinary Australians holding mainstream values’ are actually non-churchgoers who broadly favour liberal abortion, censorship and voluntary euthanasia laws and who take a permissive stance on gay civil unions

Goiran’s letter was followed by one from the DLP’s Peter Kavanagh who argued that Gerard McManus’s article was based on ‘false premises and suggestions’:

In respect to the implications that Family First is more popular [than similar parties], it should be noted that, with no publicity and very little money, the DLP, at the last Senate election in Victoria, nevertheless outvoted Family First …

To read Kavanagh’s letter, you’d almost think that the DLP was some sort of paradigm for ultra-conservative mini-parties:

Other political parties may take an approach to some issues that is similar in some respects to the DLP’s. Unlike other ‘minor’ parties, however, the DLP emerged from the labour movement. Some of these other small parties are united by little more than social conservatism … The DLP remains the only political party in Australia which is pro-family, pro-life and genuinely pro-worker.

So perhaps one day the CDP, the FFP and all the other little odds and ends will see the light and rally behind the tattered banner of the DLP? Hardly! Why would Kavanagh’s mob saddle themselves with a bunch of scurvy Protestants?

Filed in: Christian Right, Politics